


Among the Robots

by IGotNothin



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:12:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2802443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IGotNothin/pseuds/IGotNothin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world, devoid of emotion, there just so happen to be six men who can actually feel something. The only problem is finding each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among the Robots

**Author's Note:**

> If you wondered why there was no update to First of Many last week (there should be more, since break starts soon, so I'll have time to write), this is the reason for that. I had a very lucrative weekend writing this thing. I spent the rest of the week editing, so that left it to be updated today.
> 
> Anyway, hope you guys enjoy!

People walked in droves, like the little robotic freaks that they were. Their feet tapped in a rhythmic beat, and none of them strayed from it. None of them were smiling. None of them were laughing. None of them were frowning. None of them were straying from their apathetic lifestyle, for ever a second. None of them were even looking at each other. They just kept walking in their strange rhythm, dancing to some beat that only they could hear.

Michael hated it. Had always hated it, since the day that he had been born. Hated the way that the people walked, and the world smelled like chlorine. Hated their glazed eyes and their apathetic frowns. Had hated it since he had broken his pencil in second grade, because one of the robots made him angry. Since he had smashed a bottle of wine against the wall, because his parents hadn’t spoken in a week.

Anger was the only thing that he could really feel, and he hated it. Hated Sorola for causing it. Hated humanity for allowing it. Hated the robots for not knowing how to make sense.

It didn’t make sense! He shouldn’t have been the one. He should have been like every other person on the street. He should have had those same dead eyes, and that same apathetic form.

Instead, he was the one freak to actually feel something, and all that it was was hatred. Absolute burning hatred that surpassed anything else.

He pushed against the wandering robots, sending a few of them stumbling. None of them turned to look at him. None of them yelled at him for it. None of them even said a word. They just stood straighter, and maintained their bored and rhythmic pace.

The databases and the textbooks always taught him that, in the past, the robots would have snapped at him. They would have told him to shove his foot up his ass, and leave it there. They would have pushed back, and would have kept going until he was on the floor.

Instead, they just stared at him with those cold, dead eyes, and continued along with their routine. Their repetitive, neverending routine that had started when the Amplifier had, and that had just passed down from father to son to daughter to son to son.

He could punch them, shove them, kick them, and scream at them for years. No one would ever listen to him. None of them were capable, anymore. None of them were capable of anything, anymore. Michael hated that more than anything.

No one was ever there to teach him how to curb his rage. No one was there to convince him to tone it down. No one felt it- felt _anything_ \- like he did. There were all just emotionless figures in an emotionless world. They were _normal_.

Michael just happened to be the only one with rage.

His fists were trembling at his sides, while the robots hobbled along beside him. Their eyes- as unfocused as ever- barely traced over him. Their walk, as low and dragging as it always was. Like a child who dragged their feet along the gravel.

Then again, that wasn’t special for children, anymore. They were all the same. All of them- the same mindless zombies as the next. They lacked a concept of anything other than their daily, and boring, lives.

One of them walked into him, and sent Michael stumbling back a few feet. The woman kept walking, without any hint of stopping. There was no apology- no “Sorry” thrown over her shoulder. Michael wanted to punch her. To scream at her. To tell her to fuck off!

But there was no point. She wouldn’t understand it, anyway.

Instead, he turned back and pushed past another robot. He had to make it home soon, if he wanted to sleep before sunset.

* * *

Michael liked gaming. He always had, since he was a little kid who needed to let the anger out on something. The second that he could touch a controller, he was fully immersed into that world. The characters were dull- created by dulled people-, but it was enough. He had an outlet to yell to. He had _people_ to yell to, who he wouldn’t have to look in the eye. People who could actually react to him. People who, in some miniscule way, could think. Even if it was only in numbers.

He loved campaign, mostly. Sometimes, he would attempt coop, but the robots just got on his nerves. They were too stupid to know when to fire. Too slow to dodge an attack. Even with the game being catered to their limited intelligences, they were always too slow. It was annoying.

Multiplayer, sucked, when the masses acted like an AI, anyway. There were never any surprises. Never a tactic that he hadn’t encountered before.

Sorola had put so much effort into depleting the world of weakness, that he had turned it into a world with no strength, either.

He could shoot down a thousand robots, who could barely even seem to hold a controller, without problem. In the years that he had been playing on an xbox, Michael had never lost a game. Even when there were over sixteen people in a party, Michael was always in first place. It was pathetic. He never had any competition. Never had someone to actually give him a slight bit of interest in the game.

He couldn’t even brag to anyone that he was the best in the world at Call of Duty: Galactic Warfare, when no one would even understand him. There was no point to even plug in his headphones, when none of the players would listen, anyway.

Michael had quickly found that, while most of the robots played the newer games, the older were always better. The campaigns were harder, and the AI could actually kill him, sometimes. The game wasn’t designed for the emotion-impaired, who couldn’t give enough of a damn to replay a level. It had been designed for people like Michael. People who could _t_ _hink_. Who could react to the world around them, and who could actually shoot without ten seconds of hesitation.

He liked to scream at the thousands of games on the marketplace. Between No, Luca No, and the Impossible Game, he had found some gems and some pitfalls. It was nice, to have divergence for once.

There was one game, that he had always found himself to be drawn to. It was challenging for him, and it had some great mechanics, that were usually able to keep him attentive for even a little while. It helped that he had played through the campaign six times, and it had never gotten boring for him.

Halo was always fun, for him. Even if most people didn’t play it. Apparently, they were focused on such fine games as Dull: The Experience.

Michael had taste, and Halo satisfied that.

The day had been an especially bad day at work, for him. Fixing up some old lady’s light bulb, while she stared at him like a dying cow, hadn’t been fun. It had been the opposite, shockingly.

Now, all he had to do was play Halo and kill some robots. It was a great stress reliever. He could shoot through hundreds of robots in one night, and it would be the most fun that he could imagine.

He wasn’t surprised when the brown player took him down. Sometimes, a robot could get a lucky shot in. If Michael was slow, and he hadn’t noticed them, some of them could kill him. It wasn’t common, but it was certainly possible. He didn’t react, other than with a small curse, and a bullet in that guy’s back. It wouldn’t effect the game, at all.

The second time that the brown player took him down, Michael reacted. He let out a furious “Motherfucker!” and switched to his sniper rifle. He was going to take down that damn brown player, before it could get him again. Their luck had run out. Mogar was on the hunt, and he was going to shoot the apathy out of him.

Michael practically dropped his controller, from what he saw through the scope. The player was darting around- racing across the map. It was firing left and right, and taking down every single robot in his way. He didn’t move like the robots, who followed a small circular pattern, and who let out the occasional shot. The brown player moved like he did. He moved quickly, he reacted, and he fired rapidly. He acted like Michael did. Like an _emotional_ did.

Michael was the only emotional left. He had been positive of it for years. He had searched through the internet- through his world. He had spray painted on walls, and he had screamed into the streets. He was absolutely, unnervingly, alone. Could he have been wrong? Could he have made a mistake somewhere along the way?

No, he had to have been right! An emotional would have made themselves known. They would have found him. They would have told him. The brown player was probably just a glitch. An echo from a player years ago. Before the Amplifier had set off, to destroy any visage humanity. Centuries before Michael had even been born.

Michael scoped the player, easily. He shot three times, and he was able to kill it. Issue dealt with. If it was a glitch, it wouldn’t respawn.

It seemed that he was right, when the brown player froze at its spawn point. Michael shrugged it off, and continued the game. The round only had two kills left before it ended. Michael was only a little surprised that the brown player had taken first place. He must have been good, when the game had first come out. He must have been one of the best.

For the first time, Michael felt a little bad for the robots. In the beginning, they must have been normal people. Living, breathing people, who saw the world like he did. People who could react to things.

Then the Amplifier had set off, and they had lost that. There had to have been a moment of realization, when they had first slipped away into the dullness. A moment of pure fear, that had slipped into pure apathy.

Was it gradual? Had it been slow? Had it taken years for them to slip away, or simple seconds? Michael hoped for their sake that it was the latter. As horrible as it was to lose themselves so quickly, it would be worse to lose yourself over a period of years. To feel the apathy building on each day, until there was nothing left but the need to survive.

Michael was, thankfully, driven away from his inner turmoil by the message that appeared at the top of his screen. It popped like an achievement usually did, but was that impossible. He had all of the achievements in this game.

The symbol changed from the console’s into a weird new icon. It wasn’t one that he had ever borne witness to before. The writing was unheard of, as well.

Brownman sent you a message.

Michael’s heart practically leapt into his throat. Robots didn’t send messages. Glitches didn’t send messages. Robots couldn’t use words to name themselves. They just tapped against their controllers until their username wasn’t in use. Glitches didn’t have names.

Brownman wasn’t a robot name. Brownman was a normal name. Brownman was real.

He dropped his controller, and it crashed against the floor with the loudest thunk that he had ever heard. He grabbed it instantly, terrified that it could have broken. He needed to talk to Brownman. Needed to know how. If it was possible. Was he an emotional? A human, not lost to the Amplifier? Was Michael not alone?

It took him a few minutes to figure out how to respond to Brownman’s message. He had never done that, before. There had never been anyone to talk to. Robots didn’t really have the best control over technology.

The words “Hi. I’m Ray.” were the most important words that he had ever seen.

* * *

Ray was an emotional living in New York. He had been so close for so many years, and Michael had only just met him. It felt absolutely impossible for the odds to have kept him away for as long as he had been. How had they not met before? How had they not stumbled upon each other- attracted like moths to a flame? They were emotionals. They should have met sooner. It was wrong that they hadn’t.

It didn’t take long for them to organize a meeting. Ray had hopped on a train, and Michael had ordered a taxi. 12 hours after Ray had sent a message over an xbox, they were standing in the middle of New York City, surrounded by robots.

Michael had expected that the first time that he met an emotional, if he ever did, he would hug them. He would hold onto them, tight, and he would never let them go. He would protect them from the rest of the world- from any semblance of danger.

What Michael didn’t expect was that he would push the emotional against the wall, shoulder braced against the man’s neck. He was breathing heavily, panting from exertion. Driven by years of loneliness, and a mound of anger directed at the scrawny man in front of him. He could barely hold himself back from punching Ray in the face.

“Hi?” Ray said, concerned confusion slipping into his voice. Michael could understand his worry. Ray probably thought that he was the guy that the old textbooks always warned about. Internet predators, or whatever.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Michael pushed in, practically crushing Ray’s neck with the force of his arm. A cold anger slipped over him, fogging his thoughts and taking his self control.

“School, sometimes,” Ray said it with such a calm demeanor, that Michael almost forgot what he was doing. It sounded like nothing was wrong. Like he wasn’t being threatened by the only other emotional in the world. He sounded as bored as the robots did, on the rare times when they spoke. “Mostly xbox. I play Call of Duty a lot. Multiplayer sucks, but campaign’s pretty good.”

“I thought that I was the only one left!” Michael yelled, ignoring Ray’s previous response. He couldn’t give half a damn whether or not Ray liked multiplayer or not.

“Me too. Good thing you’re bad at Halo. I wouldn’t really have noticed you, otherwise.” Despite the insult, Ray had a slight grin on his face.

“Hey, screw you, too, asshole!” Despite himself, Michael couldn’t hold back his own smile.

For the first time in his life, Michael wasn’t alone. He was going to cling to that like it was the only thing that mattered, because it was. He had someone else. He wasn’t going to let that go. He couldn’t, really.

* * *

 

For years, there was a question about college. It wasn’t as simple a decision for them as it should have been, as it would have been if then had been born before Sorola. They weren’t normal- weren’t as apathetic to everything. They wouldn’t blend well with the robotic crowd. They would be noticeable. Too noticeable.

They didn’t know the consequences for being what they were, but there had to be some. Otherwise, someone else would have been like them. Other emotionals would have found them.

The emotionals were probably just hiding somewhere, biding their time until they could retrieve them. Or, at least, that’s what Michael liked to think.

There were arguments about college, a lot. Sometimes, it was Ray that wanted to go. He wanted to find a way to blend in. To show the robots that they weren’t freaks. That they could do what they had to, when it was necessary. Sometimes, it was Michael, who just didn’t want to die a freeloader. But sometimes, Ray was sick of hiding himself, and sometimes Michael just wanted to die as he’d lived- a freeloader picking people’s pockets to survive.

Eventually, the chance came and went, and neither of them took it.

* * *

Michael couldn’t track that goddamn orb, and it was infuriating. He had been at it for hours, and he still couldn’t grab onto it. It was always just out of reach- an inch away from his hand, and the next it was ten feet above him and floating further away.

He was screaming- practically ready to smash his xbox into the wall. Crackdown 2 shouldn’t have been that hard. It wasn’t supposed to be making him ready to grab a baseball bat and break his TV. Ray had done it, but that had been hours ago, and now Michael was wondering whether or not the game was glitched during his run through of it.

He was faintly aware that Ray was recording him, but he was so deeply absorbed into his tunnel vision that he didn’t notice. He had to get that orb or he was going to blow up the whole damn world!

* * *

“Are you really going to post that?” Michael asked, with more awkwardness than he really intended. He didn’t want his anger issues to be one of the first things posted onto the internet since the Amplifier had gone off. If anyone in the future stumbled across it, he would seem like an absolute idiot. He didn’t want to be remembered as the first idiot since the Amplifier had set off.

“Yeah. If there’s any emoticons like us out there, how else would we get in contact? C’mon, Michael. Don’t be a bitch.” Ray sounded as confident as he always did, when he had even a slight idea of what he was talking about, and Michael couldn’t argue with him. He never could, when Ray was determined. The normally relaxed man would never relent, once he had his eyes on something important.

Or if he had his eyes on an achievement. Either way, he was always determined.

Michael never did figure out why Ray, the king of introversion, was so willing to find other people. It was strange, to say the least, but it was positive, in the end. Or, it was most of the time. It didn’t matter, though.

Ray titled the video “Rage Quit”, and gave him his patented cocky grin, as he typed the command for it to upload. After that, they ordered Taco Bell, and Ray ate six different tacos. Somewhere along the way, Michael forgot about that video.

* * *

 

Ray’s shift always ended exactly two hours before Michael’s did. He would usually just walk home, and go through a few rounds of Halo, until the other man got back. He would kill a few AI and he would kill a few robots, too. When Michael got home, he would always greet him with the exact same phrase. A bored “Hey” and a slight nod. He was usually too engrossed in the game to say anything more. On rare occasions, he would throw Michael a controller, and point to the couch. Those were the bad days- when Ray didn’t want to talk, and just wanted formidable competition to murder.

The last time that Michael would ever walk into his apartment, Ray greeted him with an excited “Check this out, man!” and a computer screen. The xbox was off, and their two controllers were resting on the TV stand, gathering dust.

The computer was set on the crackdown video, and it was something that really shouldn’t have mattered to anyone. It had been posted months ago. No one had contacted them, and no one had even seen it. The video had been a failure, and they had long since accepted that. Emotionals probably wouldn’t contact them through the internet. Michael hadn’t expected it to work in the first place. It had always been a long shot.

But there was a single comment, already loaded on the bottom of the page, from a channel with the name of “Achievement Hunter”. Michael’s heart practically leapt into his throat, and he read it twenty times in the space of as many seconds.

(B/) “We’re living in Austin, Texas. My name’s Geoff, and there’s another guy here named Jack. I’m living, too. Crap, it’s good to see that you guys exist. Jack and I thought that we were alone, here. Send us a message, okay?”

* * *

Michael didn’t really remember what happened over the next few days. It was a whirlwind of activity, of panic, of joy, of excitement, of everything that had been suppressed by Sorola’s stupid invention. There was genuine excitement in the air, for the first time since the two of them had met. They weren’t alone, and that was the most important thing that Michael had ever heard.

If Jack and Geoff existed, who knew how many more there were?

Somewhere along the line, they had packed their bags with everything that they had ever owned, and they had driven to the airport. There had never been any hesitation. There was one moment where they were reading Geoff’s comment, and the next where they were responding- asking where exactly he lived- how they could meet. They never looked back. Never glanced back at Michael’s shitty little apartment, and shed a tear for it. They just walked out with grins and a stupid joke from Ray.

They weren’t alone. They weren’t the only ones. There were others like them, living halfway across the country. People who could think- who could understand them! People who understood the concept of emotion! People who didn’t just follow the flow because they always had. People who could rebel against tradition.

That night, Ray fell asleep on the flight. Michael didn’t.

* * *

Michael was practically ready to throw up. He was shaking- genuinely nervous for the first time in years. The bile was rising in his throat, and he felt ready to just let it go onto the floor. His nerves were reaching levels that they hadn’t been at since he had met Ray, and it was horrible. He couldn’t handle it- didn’t know how to deal with it. There was no real way to deal with it for him.

No one had ever taught him how to deal with emotion. How to smother his anger. To quench sadness. To calm his nerves. Now, they were out of his control, and it was burning against him like a poison.

What if they were wrong? What if they went to the wrong place? What if Geoff and Jack weren’t really emotionals? What if the two of them didn’t really like Michael? What if Ray liked them more than he liked Michael? What if this was an emotional who was driven insane by said emotion, and who was just a psychopath leading the two of them into his trap?

“Calm down.” Ray whispered, driving his elbow into his side, roughly. He looked much calmer than Michael did. His hands were steady, and as tanned as they normally were. He wasn’t shaking- wasn’t abnormally pale. He was absolutely normal. He was everything that Michael wasn’t.

“How are you so relaxed, right now?” Michael asked, with a shred of jealousy. He wished that he could be that calm. His own awkwardness was starting to annoy him.

“I mean, YOLO right?” That was the furthest Ray would probably go into his explanation. He had never been one for explaining what, he assumed, was obvious. He was going to leave it at that, and Michael was supposed to accept that.

Of course, Michael didn’t argue. He had known Ray for enough years to know when to argue. This was not one of those situations.

Instead, he focused his attention on the large cardboard sign across the gate, and the two words written on it in sharpie. Rage Quit.

The two people who were holding them up weren’t exactly what Michael had expected.

The first man had sleeves of tattoos running down his arms, and a mustache on his face that looked like it had more product in it than a robot usually wore in a year. Michael had expected some guy in a dress shirt with a 9-5 shift. He hadn’t expected a man in a t-shirt and shorts.

The man next to him was slightly more ordinary. He, at least, was dressed in something that covered himself a little more suitably than the way his friend was dressed. The only thing strange about him was his abnormally large beard that practically covered his face.  He was whispering something to the tattooed man- wasn’t even bothering to look in Michael’s direction. He didn’t seem to have even noticed them.

“Sweet. Let’s go.” Ray exclaimed, after catching Michael’s eye. He started walking towards them, without any hesitation. He moved fast and completely out of the ordinary rhythm, solely so that the men would be able to place who they were.

Michael followed him, mimicking Ray’s pace and shoving down his own nerves. He didn’t need hesitation, anymore. He was supposed to meet two other emotionals. He didn’t want to hold that back any more than he had to.

Jack and Geoff stopped whispering the second that they noticed the others coming near. The bearded one stood straighter, and pushed his hands into his pocket. He gave them a small grin, that did nothing to push away the awkward silence that was starting to build.

In the end, it was the tattooed one that spoke first.

“So you guys are the living dudes, right?”

To his own surprise, it was Michael who nodded. Ray’s earlier confidence had quickly dissipated, and he was just staring at the older man with wide eyes, and an awkward expression.

Suddenly, the awkwardness from the two older men was gone. The bearded man’s grin got wider and more confident. The tattooed one mimicked him, and let out a sort of laugh that Michael had never heard before. Ray was the only other person that Michael had ever heard laugh, and his and the man’s were two entirely distinct ways. There was barely any similarity, at all. Ray’s was rougher- more forced. The tattooed man’s laugh sounded smoother, relaxed, and more involved more rough jerks. He was more calm than Ray ever was, and his laugh spelled that out like nothing else.

“I’m Jack,” The bearded one said, with a slight edge to his voice that indicated his humor. “The weird one is Geoff.”

“Hey!” It looked like it had taken physical effort for Geoff to stop laughing for long enough to let out the response. He looked too relieved- too happy to force himself to stop. He slipped back into his giggling fit the second that the exclamation was out.

“I’m Michael. That’s Ray.” He pointed at the man, who was grinning along with Geoff. Ray was obviously finding this situation funny, and Michael could share his sentiments.

He had been intimidated by a guy who was currently dying of laughter, just because of a nod. It was kind of ridiculous, in hindsight.

Even if he still didn’t trust the man, he still found it a little funny.

“Sorry- I just,” He cut himself off, as he regained his poise. There were still little lines next to his eyes, that had forced from his fit. “It’s awesome that you guys actually exist.”

“You, too.” Ray said. There was a slight edge of hesitation in his tone, but he seemed mostly comfortable. It was a familiar awkwardness, at least.

Michael was much more used to the Ray who hated working at Game Stop, because he had to talk to robots, than the Ray who uploaded a video of Michael screaming to try to attract emotionals. This new Ray was strange and unfamiliar to him. He was happy to have the introvert back.

“How many of us do you think there are?” Jack asked, softly.

“Who the hell knows?”

* * *

 

The drive to Geoff’s house was even more awkward than their meeting had been. Austin had too much traffic, and Jack spent the entire drive apologizing for it. Even after Ray had told him that he had lived in _New York_ , he had still looked hesitant about it.

Michael wasn’t annoyed by the man’s tenseness, like he should have been. It was relieving to see, in fact. It was proof, beyond what they had already seen, that they really were what they said they were. They were emotionals. That was a relief that was stronger than anything Jack could apologize for.

When they reached the house, Geoff was muttering something about zombies taking bikes to work, to free up the interstate, and Ray was actually laughing. The introverted gamer was actually laughing at something. That was a feat, in itself.

“So where are we staying?” Michael asked to the bearded driver, once Geoff and Ray had wandered into the house.

“You’ll be in the guest room. We only have three bedrooms, and Gavin has the third. We’ve got an air mattress, if you need it.” Jack said, with the same apologetic tone that he had during the car ride. He apparently thought that an air mattress was the worst thing that Michael could have been given.

It wasn’t. Michael had lived under much worse conditions, before.

“Who’s Gavin?”

“Oh, he’s like us. He’s in England, right now. He’s still trying to get his visa, but he left all of his stuff here, so we’re just letting it sit, until he gets back.”

“He sounds like an asshole.” Michael wasn’t joking, but Jack laughed.

“Yeah, that’s because he is. You’ll see. He’s coming back next week.”

“Do you know any others like us?” Michael asked, just to be sure. He felt slightly uncomfortable that, even among the two new emotionals that they had discovered, there had been a third who had hidden himself so well that they had no idea that he had even existed. It was nice to know that there was another that lived with Geoff and Jack.. That would have been nice of them to say over the comments.

“Not that we know of. There’s us, Gav, and you guys.”

“There could be others, though, right?” Michael asked, with the slightest air of desperation. He had found three of them (four of them), so far, and it wasn’t enough. Not when the world should have made robots a minority. Not when his his deepest ingrained instincts yearned for a group. Not when people were supposed to be people. Three- four wasn’t enough, then. Ten billion wasn’t enough.

“Yeah.” There was a hint of disbelief in Jack’s voice, and it dug into Michael like a knife.

He had only known Jack for an hour. The doubt shouldn’t hurt that much. It shouldn’t make him self conscious of his own stupid questions. He shouldn’t care.

Yet, he did.

* * *

He had read once, in an old textbook that had been written about the Amplifier, that Burns had been against the production of the device. He had used one simple argument, and Sorola had ignored it and had activated the Amplifier, anyway. Still, the argument was more sound than any that Sorola had ever made.

“Houses come and go but a home is where you make your life. You can sell your houses but a home is where people love you.”

Burns had went into detail about it, for thirty minutes straight. About how emotions were what made humans human. About how you can’t have a home, if people don’t love you, and without emotion, people can’t love you. About how people weren’t people without somewhere someone who was a home- without something that they cared about.

Sorola had just shaken his head, and flicked the switch, and the whole of human reality had changed forever.

Two hundred years later, Michael had broken a pencil, and Sorola’s entire life was rendered as unimportant as he had rendered the world. Sorola had failed in his greatest endeavor, even if it was just in that one small case. Or, now, five cases. Sorola was a failure, and that was better than anything that Michael had ever hoped for.

For the first time in his life, Michael felt genuinely relaxed. He had just abandoned his family, his home, his job, and his city, and he didn’t really care. He felt more at home here, on a barely-inflated mattress, surrounded by people who were like him.

Burns had been right, and even if it had taken two hundred years for someone to realize that- it didn’t matter. Burns had been entirely, undeniably, correct, and the five emotionals living under Geoff’s roof were proof of that.

They were making history just by existing. They could change the world, and there was no one to stop them.

Ray rolled over slightly, and Michael tensed. He was worried about waking the other man, who valued sleep more than anything else. If Michael woke him, Ray might genuinely be angry. They had been in that house for exactly four hours. He didn’t need Ray yelling at him, yet.

He still didn’t trust Geoff and Jack, entirely. It was a pointless worry, admittedly. There was no reason to be paranoid about the people who had sheltered them- who had shown them that they weren’t alone.

It was an irrational fear, and that was why Michael couldn’t stop it. When a fear is irrational, there is absolutely nothing to face. No way to get over it. He couldn’t even have tried. So he just ignored it, and hid it under the visage of 27 years of unfiltered anger, like he always did.

He would talk to them once the sun came up. He would explore their motives, and he would see what their plan was. Maybe he could calm himself down, a little. That would be good.

If they were the last human beings left, they deserved a chance. He might as well give it to them.

* * *

 

“So, did you guys ever go to college?” Jack asked, over breakfast, on their first morning in Austin.

Michael was too busy stuffing his face with Geoff’s pancakes to respond, and he decided to just leave it to Ray- who was still just picking at his food. The hispanic shook his head, and poured himself another cup of orange juice.

“There’s no point, right? What do we need a degree for?” Ray said.

“Outnumbered four to one!” Geoff yelled suddenly. The man let out a loud laugh, and grinned at Jack, who looked noticeably less excited with the news. Apparently that was an argument that they had had before.

“What Gavin didn’t go to college, either?” Michael asked between mouthfuls. Jack just looked thankful that he hadn’t spoken through it.

“Gav’s a camera man. He likes to shoot slow motion stuff. He’s done a couple of movies.” Geoff explained. There was a fond expression in his eyes, and a proud smile on his face. He and Gavin must have been close, for him to be that happy for the man to have achieved a career in filmmaking.

“What’d he shoot?” There weren’t many movies, anymore. Even with the robotic tradition of continuing the lives of their parents, the movie industry was slowly falling apart. The robots weren’t trained enough to operate anything properly, so usually nothing was actually filmed.

It was the same problem with the space and engineering programs. No one knew how to do anything accurately, so they just tried until something worked. It usually never did.

“He shot that documentary that came out last summer,” Jack offered. “What was it called?”

“‘Amplification: the Study of Condensing.’ Stupid title, but surprisingly good movie.” Geoff answered, the second that the question had slipped out of Jack’s mouth.

Geoff was apparently incredibly proud of Gavin’s accomplishments. That much was obvious.

“When’s Gavin getting back, anyway? Michael said something about a visa?” Ray trailed off, awkwardly. Geoff didn’t seem to notice.

“Thursday. Jack and I are going to have to pick him up."

* * *

 

Michael really didn’t know how they ended up standing in the airport. He didn’t really know how Geoff had roped him into holding up the sign. The sign that was literally just a picture of a nose taped to a cardboard box. The same cardboard box that had the words “Rage Quit” written on the back, in permanent marker.

He definitely didn’t know how Geoff had roped Ray into coming with them, when Michael couldn’t even convince Ray to go to McDonalds, sometimes. Geoff was apparently incredibly persuasive.

“So what exactly is Gavin like?” Michael asked, after about fifteen minutes of them standing by the gate like idiots. In another world, they would have drawn attention. In this one, the dead-looking woman at the terminal barely even looked at them.

“You said it yourself. Gavin’s an asshole. He’s just funny enough that Geoff keeps him around, though. No input from me.” Jack answered, quickly.

Michael would have expected Geoff to deny the accusation. He had seemed to like Gavin, earlier. He wouldn’t just let Jack insult his friend. He didn’t seem like that kind of a person. He wasn’t like Michael and Ray. He couldn’t just insult people for a joke.

Apparently, Michael was absolutely wrong about that, because Geoff’s next statement was definitely not well-intended.

“His nose is gigantic. You should see it. It’s about the size of Texas.”

Before Michael could try to push the conversation any further, Geoff’s humored expression slipped away into something that looked a lot more relieved. He relaxed suddenly, and Michael didn’t notice how tense his shoulders had been over the past few days. Hadn’t noticed the worry that had been strewn across the man’s face. He didn’t know Geoff like he knew Ray. There was no way that he could have known that.

The plane landed on the tarmac without a problem. That was a miracle, considering how untrained the pilots usually were. It seemed that Gavin had gotten lucky, and had scored himself someone who actually knew what they were doing. Maybe someone had handed the pilot a training manual, once, and it had shown them exactly what to do.

That was the reason that Michael didn’t particularly enjoy flying. No one knew what they were doing, and they might fall out of the sky, because of it.

It was still better than driving, though. With drivers education abolished, the roads were marginally more dangerous than the sky. At least, there was only two people to make a mistake on a plane. There were hundreds- thousands who still owned cars.

This plane seemed to be a little more patched up than most were. It was mostly held together by duct tape, but it held, so it was good enough. It was better than having giant holes in the wings, like most planes did. Gavin really had gotten lucky.

It didn’t take long for the patrons to start to leave the plane. There were no real rules to keep them from just walking off the plane the second that it landed. None of the flight attendants would stop them.

Gavin- or someone that Michael assumed was Gavin- was the first to stumble off. He had the giant nose that Geoff had been talking about, and he had a head full of messy blonde hair. His skin currently was looking about as green as his eyes did, and it wasn’t a very nice sight. It became clear why his skin was so sickly looking, when he dipped his head into a trash can, and let out the most horrible gag that Michael had heard in his life.

Honestly, it was kind of funny.

After Gavin let out the contents of his lunch, he wiped it off of his face, and grinned at the four men that were waiting for him. He looked absolutely normal- as if he hadn’t just thrown up into an airport garbage bin. Like absolutely nothing was wrong, and it was just another day in his life.

“I’m Gavin.” The man announced. with the most annoying accent imaginable. It grated on Michael’s nerves more than anything else could have.

He held out his hand for Michael to shake. He didn’t take it.

“Michael.”

“I’m Ray.” Ray didn’t take his hand, either.

“It’s been a while, Gav.” Geoff said, without any of the fondness from earlier. He sounded more like he was chastising the British man for being away for so long, instead of celebrating the fact that he was back.

“Yeah, sorry about that. The mifs at immigration were being real mongs.” Gavin explained. Geoff nodded, as if that was a perfectly ordinary response.

“It’s like he’s trying to speak to me- I know it.” Ray whispered to Michael. He earned a low laugh for it.

“Good to see you found some other people, though. I haven’t seen another people since you guys. There’s absolutely no one back in England, but mifs.” Gavin scoffed.

“‘Another people?’ And what’s a mif? What the hell does that even mean?” Michael cut in, suddenly. That statement made absolutely no sense. Not only was the grammar incredibly skewed, but the meaning was also ridiculous. There were still robots in England. Michael was pretty sure that hadn’t changed in the three days that he had been in Geoff’s house.

“A mif is one of them. And a people,” Gavin explained, slowly. He was giving the slowest explanation in human history, and it was really annoying Michael. “You know- like us. A people.”

“What does that even mean?” Michael was so deeply focused into the conversation that he didn’t notice the tall blonde man step off of the terminal. Didn’t notice the man’s double take when he saw Michael yelling at Gavin.

“Us. Feelers, or whatever! We can feel! We have feelings! We’re a people! I haven’t seen another people.”

“Person. The word that you’re thinking of is person,” Michael hadn’t noticed the blonde man near them, but somewhere along the line, he had. He was practically on top of them now. “And I couldn’t help, but notice that you all fit that description,” There was a slight grin on the man’s face, that betrayed his otherwise cool expression. “I’m Ryan.”

* * *

 

As it turned out, it had been absolute chance that the six of them had met. Had Michael and Ray not both logged into Halo at the same time, they never would have met. Had Geoff not gotten drunk at the same bar as Jack, they would never have contacted Michael and Ray. Had Gavin not filmed himself jumping onto a water balloon, Geoff would never have noticed him. Had Ryan not taken that flight, he would have wound up in Seattle, instead of Austin.

It was the largest collection of emotionals since the Amplifier had set off, and it had happened because of chance. Sorola had been completely defied, and it was because two idiots had decided to post a ‘Rage Quit’. Because one idiot had decided to go into a career in slow motion filming. Because one idiot decided to watch internet videos instead of going to college. Because Gavin’s visa had expired, and robots worked slowly.

The night that the six had first met, they reveled in that fact. The fact that, for the first time in a while, they had met people who they didn’t know were possible- let alone real. They sat around Geoff’s dining room table, staring at each other awkwardly, until Gavin decided to break the silence.

“So, Ryan. Why were you in England, anyway? You’re American cheese. What are you doing in Europe?”

There was a few seconds where Ryan kept mouthing “American cheese”, before he actually responded.

“I like travelling. I get to see new places, and I get to look for Bios. I usually just take whatever flight is available. It’s worked for me, so far.” Ryan explained, with a small shrug.

“Bio?” Jack asked.

“Uh, living. Feelers, or whatever he said.” Ryan pointed at Gavin, who had the gall to look offended.

“Gavin. My name’s Gavin.”

“Gary?”

“Gavin!”

“Gerry?”

“Gavin!”

“Grey?”

“So did you find anymore Bios?” Ray asked, before their conversation could get any stupider than it already had. Michael was incredibly thankful for him doing that.

“If I did, I’d be with them, instead of here.”

* * *

 

His previous statement turned out to be completely wrong, because Ryan didn’t stay for long. He wasn’t like the rest of them. He hadn’t been as settled- as stable. When someone moved around everyday of their life for decades, without any hope of ever staying, it usually rendered them incapable of that. At the end of the week, he left them with his phone number and he took the next plane that was preloaded to fly.

Geoff and Gavin were absolutely annoyed with his leaving. They argued with him until the second that he was walking down the terminal. Even after, Gavin had harassed him with drunken texts until the moment that Ryan simply stopped responding.

Gavin complained about it for weeks. About Ryan’s betrayal of the ‘people’ name. About how he shouldn’t have run away- should have stayed like the rest of them did.

Michael just waved as Ryan left.

* * *

 

Four months passed without any word from the vagabond. Four months of utter relaxation, of gaming and screaming, and people who thought like the others did. Four months of Gavin being a complete and utter idiot- of Ray’s stupid jokes- of Geoff’s drunken adventures- of Jack’s arguments against shaving. Four months of people who weren’t completely emotionally constipated.

It took around two months before Michael actually started to calm down around them. When he started to let himself start drinking in front of him. When he started to get so hammered that ‘Goat Simulator’ looked like a good game.

Gavin wasn’t as bad as he had thought, originally. He was still an asshole most of the time, but it was less of an annoying and stupid asshole, and more of a humorously stupid asshole. Michael’s burning hatred for the man quickly abated, when he realized that.

Honestly, none of them were as bad as he had thought, originally. Geoff was just a tired man who really didn’t like sobriety. Jack was the kindest out of any of them. Gavin was still an asshole.

Geoff was fun to play Peggle against. His pure excitement when playing that game was too much fun to pass up. Drunk Geoff playing Peggle was even better.

Jack and first person shooters were the greatest combination in history. He still had no idea how to aim. No matter how many times Michael showed him, he always ignored it. He always shot without even looking through his scope, first. It made Michael feel like a competent gamer.

Gavin and indie games were always fun. There was a reason that Michael chose him to play surgeon simulator with. He was as bad at them as Jack was at aiming, but somehow he made it fun. He was the worst gamer in history, and he was still the best person to play with, because there was never a dull moment. If there was, Gavin would always dock his fingers into Michael’s hand and suddenly, it was funny again.

Ray, as always, was fun to play Halo with. Sometimes it was fun to lose, after all.

They four months were full of gaming and drunken shenanigans. Michael wouldn’t trade them for anything.

That belief changed the moment that Gavin’s phone rang.

* * *

Michael jerked awake, torn out of his sleep by screaming. He reacted quickly- practically cracking his head against the windowsill, as he rolled away from his barely-inflated mattress. It stung enough that he winced, but he barely even processed the pain of it. He had more important things to deal with. Screaming was not an ordinary occurrence, in his life.

For the first time in months, there was a real argument going on under their roof. Geoff- and that voice had to be Geoff, with the amount of times that it was cracking- was _screaming_ at someone, and Michael didn’t even know what for. He couldn’t make out the words- only the pitch of Geoff’s voice. The angry- ever fluctuating pitch.

He pushed himself onto the feet at the same time as Ray finally opened his eyes.

“What’d I miss?” Ray’s voice was still skewed from his half-asleep state.

“Don’t know. I’m going to look. You coming?”

Ray yawned, and shut his eyes again. That was probably the only answer that Michael was going to get, so he just slipped out of the room, and shut the door behind him.

He crept down the stairs without bothering to quiet his footsteps. He didn’t particularly care if Geoff knew that he was coming, or not. Knowing Geoff, he would keep going no matter who was in the room. Once Geoff was in a rage, he was about as bad as Michael was. The anger would keep him going until it burned itself out.

When he reached the bottom, he saw Geoff standing in the living room, screaming into a cell phone, while Gavin cowered behind him. Geoff didn’t even seem to notice the terrified British man. He was too focused on screaming at the phone.

Jack wasn’t there- wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity. Had he done something wrong? Had he and Geoff gotten into a fight, and that was why the bearded man wasn’t there?

“Get your ass out of there!” Geoff screamed, and Michael instantly realized that he was entirely wrong. There was too much worry in Geoff’s voice for him to be angry because of an argument. He was angry because of worry. What had Jack done that had gotten him so angry?

“What’s going on, Gav?” Michael asked.

“Ryan-” Gavin began. He was quickly cut off by Geoff’s screaming.

“Don’t go near it! You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, Ryan! Get the fuck away from it!” Geoff’s panic was certainly not helping Gavin calm down.

“Where is he?” Michael could feel his own concern building up, now. Ryan was the only other emotional that they had found. If he was getting himself into a dangerous situation, the few emotionals left in the world might lose one of their own. They couldn’t let that happen.

“Ryan found-”

“Don’t fucking touch it! You’re going to fucking regress, Ryan! You’re going to turn into a fucking zombie! Get the hell out of there, before you fuck yourself up!”

“Ryan found the Amplifier!” The words poured out of Gavin’s mouth like he couldn’t stop them. Suddenly, the situation made a lot more sense.

No wonder Geoff was so furious! Ryan was apparently trying to touch the very thing that had torn away humanity, before! He was going to lose himself. He was going to turn into a robot. He was going to regress, and they were going to lose the only other emotional left.

Michael could already feel his own anger bubbling to the surface, ready to flood out of him and burn everything around him to the ground. Michael was going to explode.

He didn’t remember snatching the phone out of Geoff’s hand, but suddenly he had it pressed against his ear, and there was a calm voice ringing through his head.

“-n’t do anything to us. I tested it. We’re fine. It can’t hurt us. I’ll be fine.” Ryan sounded so sure, and it just made Michael even more angry. He was acting so smug about it. He sounded so _positive_. But if he was wrong, they were going to lose him. He couldn’t risk that. Why was he risking that? Ryan was one of them. They had known him for less than a week, all together, and he was already family. He couldn’t risk that. He couldn’t throw that away, like it didn’t mean anything. Like _they_ didn’t mean anything.

“Don’t you dare, Ryan!” Michael yelled. “I swear to god, I will personally beat the shit out of you, if you turn into one of them!”

There was a pause, where Michael could only hear Ryan breathing into the phone. He was breathing too quickly- too rapidly, and that was the only thing betraying his cool persona.

“Michael, I’ll be fine. I’m sure! There’s something about us- we’re different. We’re not like them. There’s a reason that we can think. I need to test it.” Ryan said, eventually.

“Where are you? Where the hell are you?” Michael demanded. The other man paused, again, before admitting that he was in some small town between Texas and Mexico. “Don’t do anything until we get there. I swear, Ry, if you do anything, I’m going to find you and punch you in your fucking face. Do you understand me?”

Michael didn’t wait for an answer, before he shoved the phone into Geoff’s chest. He barely said anything to the one man who were staring at him like he was some monster who’d stolen candy from a toddler, and the other who agreed with him.  He just stormed back up the stairs, and prodded Ray awake, without a care in the world for the other man’s sleeping habits.

“Pack your shit. We’re going on a road trip.”

* * *

Sorola had spent years designing and producing the Amplifier. A gigantic device with enough of a signal to tap into every single human being on earth. The machine that poisoned the water, changed the chemical properties of the air, and did a million other things to get into people’s systems. Once it was there, it just shut them down. Shut down everything in them that made them human.

It worked in a strange way, that most people could barely process. It literally numbed the chemical processes of the human body. Any visage of love, compassion, anger, sadness, happiness, or anything else that wasn’t apathy was eradicated. That stupid device had rendered an entire species empty.

No one knew what it looked like. No one knew quite how it was made. Even it’s location was one of the most confidential pieces of information that the human race had ever procured, only second to the defenses of Fort Knox.

And Ryan Haywood had found it.

One man, who had spent more time on a plane than on land, had found the Amplifier. One man, who had no inside sources, had located the machine that had destroyed an entire species.

Michael was practically bouncing in his chair throughout the drive. He was going to see the device that had destroyed his life for the extent of it. He was going to see exactly what Sorola had done.

For the first time, he realized that he could fix things. He could destroy the Amplifier, and he could restore humanity to the human race. He could bring the life back to earth. He could make people think again, and all he had to do was take a baseball bat to a piece of metal.

He could change the world! All of them could!

“Do you think it’s really-” Ray trailed off, unable to finish his own sentence. They all understood his meaning, though.

“Could it be the real deal? I wouldn’t bet on that. It’s too lucky. No way it’d be that close to us.” Geoff answered, with as much honesty as he could convey.

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “Maybe the world owes us lucky, for once.”

* * *

 

Ryan looked absolutely horrible. Unlike the rest of them, who looked better than the had when they first met- due to access to actual money that didn’t come from pickpocketing, like Michael was used to- he definitely looked like he had been sleeping on the streets for weeks.

He hadn’t shaven for way too long, and he looked like he was preparing to fight Jack over who had the best beard there. He had heavy bags under his eyes, that clearly spelled out the fact that he hadn’t slept in days. He also looked like he hadn’t eaten anything, either. He greeted them with a wave and a slightly nervous grin.

“You look like shit.” Ray said, with a brutal amount of honesty. Ryan winced.

“Yeah, that’ll happen. Haven’t left the lab for a few days. Sorola had some pretty interesting theories, and I wanted to test a few of them.” Ryan said, with a shrug. He acted as if that was completely ordinary.

“What were you testing?” Jack asked, with a slight hesitation. This time, Ryan looked a little more excited to answer.

“Sorola had some books. Some theories. He was worried that we would adapt and become resistant. He’d isolated a specific brand of cell, that at the time wasn’t apparent in humans, and it repelled every effect of the Amplifier. I wanted to see if we had it. Turns out we did. That’s why we’re Bios. We can repel the effects of the Amplifier, so we can think for ourselves.” He said it with a smooth voice that was intended to calm them down. To make them ignore the underlying meaning of exactly what he’d said. It didn’t work.

“How’d you test that?” Geoff asked. When Ryan didn’t answer, he clenched his fists. “How’d you test it, Ryan?”

“Blood tests. I drew some blood and I took some from a drone. They weren’t very hard to persuade.” He sped through his explanation, as if hoping that it would go over their heads. It didn’t.

“You drew your own blood in _Sorola’s lab?_ You really are an idiot, aren’t you. You could have been infected. You had an open wound right next to the Amplifier! You are the stupidest bastard that I’ve ever met!” Geoff looked even angrier than he had when Ryan had called him. His fists were practically shaking with his rage. Ryan, at least, looked slightly sheepish.

“I needed to-”

“You needed to what? Prove that you’re a moron?”

“We’re different. I needed to know why. There had to be a reason and-” This time, Ryan was cut off by the other furious figure in the room.

“It doesn’t matter if there’s a reason, if you’re a goddamn robot! I told you not to do anything! I told you not to fucking do anything!” Michael yelled. Despite being shorter than Ryan, he was able to force the vagabond to step back.

“To be fair, I did it before you asked that.”

One second, Michael was standing in front of Ryan, fuming as a result of the man’s stupidity. The next, Ryan was clutching his face, and Michael’s knuckles stung like all hell.

“Alright, calm down.” Jack said, trying to diffuse the tension. He was a little too late.

Ryan clenched his fists, and suddenly all of his timidness from earlier was gone. He looked about as angry as Michael felt. His face was red- either from a result of the punch, or from absolute fury. Suddenly, it was like a switch had been flicked. He had gone from calm and collected to absolutely insane, in half of a second.

“No, fuck off,” It was the angriest that Michael had heard him sound, even if he had only known him for a few days time. There was venom dripping out of his mouth and fire from his eyes. “I thought that I was alone for years! Years! I thought that I was the freak! You guys had others! I thought that I was alone! I was searching for anyone! I searched the fucking world, and there was no one- no one! Then there was you, and I thought, ‘hey, we can’t be alone. There’s these five. There has to be more, right?’ Guess what? There’s not!”

Ryan was shaking, trembling now. Words were flowing out of his mouth, and it looked like he wasn’t able to hold them back. The punch had apparently set him off on a tangent that Michael definitely hadn’t expected.

“We’re the only ones that I’ve found, and I’ve been searching for a long freaking time! So, when I got the chance to find out why? I’m gonna fucking take it! I’m the bad guy for it? For wanting to figure out why we exist?”

The group fell into silence after that. An awkward silence, while the three furious men forced themselves to calm down, and while the others remained silent to allow them to.

Michael didn’t really notice how long they spent like that. He was too preoccupied with slowing his breathing. The only thing that he noticed was Gavin breaking the silence.

“So, where’s this Amplifier?”

* * *

 

Michael was smashing the Amplifier with a rock, and he was barely able to appreciate the symbolism in that. He was a being of pure emotion, using paleolithic weaponry to destroy the single-most advanced piece of technology in modern history. He was destroying it, without a care for it’s intended purpose, desperately trying to restore exactly what it had stolen from him.

There was grunting next to him, as each man used their various weapons (that ranged from a baseball bat to a metal pole to a piece of glass) to destroy every inch of the machine. Jack was cutting every single wire that ran along it’s side. Ray was pulling apart its internal makeup, dragging sheet after sheet of metal away from it. Gavin and Geoff were beating on it like it was Sorola himself.

Ryan was the only one standing on the side watching. Michael couldn’t help, but feel resentful for it. He should have been next to them, helping them bring the thing to rubble. Instead, he just watched. It was pathetic.

He didn’t let himself dwell on that for long. He was taking too much pleasure out of this. He was far too happy destroying the Amplifier to stop, and worry too much about the other man. If Ryan didn’t want to change the world with them, he was entitled to that. He could just stand there and watch, if he wanted to. He just wouldn’t be mentioned in the textbooks, if that was how he wanted to act.

Jack, eventually, cut one last wire, and the machine went dark. It’s fans stopped whirring. It’s blinding red light stopped glowing. It’s sharp edges retracted back into itself, the second that the power shut down, turning the large, porcupine shaped, device into an ovular shape.

Michael let out a laugh, and slumped in on himself, slightly. It was done. They were done! They’d destroyed the Amplifier! They’d fixed things! They’d changed the world! They’d done everything that he’d dreamed of doing! They’d fixed everything!

“We did it.” Jack muttered, breathily. There was a small smile on his face, that Michael hadn’t seen on him before. A genuine smile, without any of the one that one of their grins usually had.

“Where’s a mif?” Gavin asked, with the most excited yell that he had ever emitted. “We need to see if it worked!”

Gavin moved to run towards the door, but Ryan grabbed onto his arm before he could. The taller man pulled him back into the room, away from the robots that were still walking outside.

Michael’s hopes crashed the second that he saw them. They were still walking. They were still walking in that same rhythmic beat. They were still moving without looking at each other. They were still not smiling.

It hadn’t worked.

“It’s going to take a while to kick in. There’s still chemicals in the air. We’re going to have to wait until it dissipates.” Ryan said, with an apologetic tone.

“So it did work?” Michael asked. Ryan nodded, locking his eyes onto the floor. He looked more downdraught by the news than excited, like he should have been. “Why do you look so sad about it, then?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No,” Geoff cut in, with the same level of annoyance as he had had earlier. Ryan was definitely trying to be difficult, lately. “Answer the question.”

Ryan hesitated for only a second.

“Why did Sorola get rid of emotions in the first place?”

“I don’t know. Because he’s crazy?” Gavin contributed.

“No, it’s more than that. There had to be a legitimate reason, or no one would have let him continue.” He sounded cautious, as if he was still trying to see how they would react to him. He was probably still taken aback by Michael’s punch.

“Burns didn’t.” Michael tried. Ryan just shook his head.

“Burns was the only one. Everyone else was on board. He had to have funds- sponsors- for a project this big. I’m just worried about what emotions did to people, that they would throw them away like that,” He suddenly seemed to notice the way that the Lads’ faces had fallen, and he hurried to correct that. “Doesn’t matter, though. We’ll see. Maybe it’s just because the people back then were assholes.”

Gavin grinned, as if that was a perfectly reasonable explanation for it. He waved at the group to follow him.

“How’s about we get back, then? We’ve spent a little bit too long here. We’re going to go all miffy, if we stay any longer.”

For the first time, the group actually listened. Even Ryan, when Geoff waved at him to follow.

* * *

Four more months passed, and nothing changed. The robots were still wandering the world. The people were still glass-eyed, and the air still smelled faintly like chlorine. The world was still ruled by the emotionless.

To the world, everything was as dull as it always was, but to Michael, things had changed. Even if it was only the small things.

The way that Ryan was more relaxed around them. How he liked to play GTA with them, and shoot them in the back at any opportunity.

The way that Gavin liked to play ping pong with robot’s heads, and film it in slow motion.

The way that Ray had started to film them, whenever they were drunk, and play it back the second that they woke up- still in the midst of a hangover.

The way that Jack laughed whenever one of them jinxed the other.

The way that Geoff’s anger only returned when Gavin finished every bottle of beer in the house.

The way that Ryan had calmed down, and apologized for the events in Sorola’s lab.

The way that Gavin hugged him afterwards, and called him a mong.

The way that Ray started gaming with the others.

The way that Jack was ambushed to shave off his beard, and he still kept it.

The way that Geoff was more open with the rest of them about the things that he found on the internet (nothing- absolutely nothing)

The way that they ate dinner, every night, and complained about the timing of it, but did nothing to change it.

The way that Michael moved off of the barely-inflated mattress the same day that Gavin had moved out of his shack, and into the main house. The way that Geoff pushed together all three mattresses, to make a giant room that was only pillows and blankets. The way that they all moved into it, without complaint.

To Michael, things changed rapidly. From the small stuff to the big stuff. It changed for the better.

And it was gone, even if he didn’t know about the man across the world, who woke up with the greatest hangover in history, and a thousand questions that none of the robots could answer. Because, if he had known, it wouldn’t have just been good. It would have been amazing. It would have been spectacular.

* * *

And two hundred years later, there were a billion emotionals among the robots.

**Author's Note:**

> That was really fun to write. My first happy ending. I’m a little off about it (i’m aro & ace. So I'm kind of iffy about romantic stuff), but I guess it’s good enough. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed!


End file.
